A Waste Management team leader has been fired after repeatedly allowing a customer to dump their rubbish for free in exchange for a few boxes of beer, costing the company $111k.
Tina Houkamau was let go after her employers saw CCTV footage of her accepting beers instead of monetary payment.
Houkamau claimed she’d been unfairly dismissed from her job at the Seaview Refuse Transfer Station in Lower Hutt and took a personal grievance.
However, her claim was dismissed, and she was forced to pay her former employer $4000.
CCTV footage showed a customer’s vehicle stopping beside Houkamau’s car and unloading boxes into it. Footage from later in the day showed another employee taking beer from the car and loading it into his vehicle.
Through the footage, Waste Management found that this happened on multiple occasions with the same customer.
The same customer had visited the dump on 74 occasions and had not paid to dump their rubbish 71 times.
The company estimated that $111,091.54 worth of rubbish had not been paid for.
The customer paying with beer admitted they’d had an arrangement with Houkamau since 2022.
Photo Credit: NZME
